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Led by National Nurses United and aided by 250,000 signatures from members of the Alliance for Retired Americans, a coalition of progressive groups delivered more than a million names on petitions to Congress to save Social Security and Medicare against threatened Republican cuts and privatization.
And they picked up support from key congressional Democrats, including incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Both warned the GOP to keep “Hands off Medicare!” as Schumer put it, lest Republicans suffer electoral retribution from outraged seniors and the rest of the country.
“Privatizing lets the insurance companies do what they want, and the doctors, too…without regard to what patients can afford,” Schumer said.“This is a war on seniors.”
The jam-packed press conference on Dec. 7 and the petitions may not affect Republican leaders such as House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who have been campaigning for smaller increases in Social Security benefits, raising the retirement age, and turning Medicare into an ill-funded “voucher” program to force people to bargain on their own with huge, profitable health insurers.
But if they try, speakers said, the GOP leadership will run smack into their own president-elect, millionaire mogul Donald Trump, who opposed such cuts on the campaign trail. The Democrats – and the groups – intend to hold him to that promise.
They also promised to return to Capitol Hill with, as one speaker said, “two million, five million, 10 million, 30 million” signatures to save the two programs.
“To Ryan, from the most trusted profession in America” – nurses – “we say ‘Hands off Medicare!’” NNU Vice President Sandra Falwell, RN, said as NNU members and other Social Security and Medicare advocates in the audience beamed. “Rather than destroying Medicare by vouchers, let’s restrict drug prices,” Falwell added.
The Minnesota Nurses Association is part of National Nurses United.
Elements of the GOP Medicare plan, mentioned at the press conference and in prior news stories, reportedly include:
- Converting Medicare into a voucher program, with each senior getting a set amount yearly to use to buy health insurance on his or her own.
- Raising the minimum age of eligibility for Medicare, now 65. It was unclear if the increase would be retroactive, thus affecting people who turn 65 before any new law passes.
- Removing all cost controls Medicare now imposes through its payments to physicians and hospitals. Together, Medicare, Medicaid and state run exchanges under the Affordable Care Act – which the Republicans seek to repeal – cover half of U.S. health care spending.
- Eliminating minimum requirements for services insurers must pay for, such as maternal care and reproductive rights care.
- Eliminating a cap on what insurers can charge older enrollees.
The Republicans justify their Medicare schemes by claiming the program is going broke. Max Richtman of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare warned the crowd that the nation “would be bombarded with that false information.”
“Rather than destroy Medicare as we know it, threatening the health of my patients, let’s improve it by enabling it to negotiate prescription drug prices,” NNU’s Falwell said. “Rather than waste tax dollars by subsidizing profit-making” health insurers, “let’s cover everybody through the efficient Medicare system. 58 percent of Americans support Medicare For All.
“Our members are irate” at the GOP proposals, said Richard Fiesta, executive director of the union-backed 3-million-member Alliance for Retired Americans. “Many issues were discussed in the campaign, but privatizing and voucherizing Medicare wasn’t one of them.
Besides the 250,000 signatures his group collected on the petitions, which were carted to the offices of Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kent., ARA has already hosted 100 meetings in lawmakers’ home congressional districts and plans dozens more.